Calendar

Past Activity

East Wild Iris Ridge Loop

  • Start date: 03/29/2022

  • Start time: 12:00 AM

  • End date: 03/29/2022

  • End time: 11:59 PM

Description:

We will meet at the shopping center parking lot across from Churchill HS -- corners of Bailey Hill and
Westleigh -- 2101 Bailey Hill Rd, Eugene, OR 97405.
We will caravan from there. Scroll to bottom for more information.

We will be exploring the east side of the Wild Iris Ridge Park, starting at the Summit Trailhead for an easy 2.5 mile walk with a gradual 300 feet elevation change. We start down and come back up but will be walking at a leisurely pace.

This east loop is not as steep as the conditioning climb up from Bailey Hill Road. There may be some muddy parts of the trail at the bottom of the less visited east valley.

This will be an easy-paced walk to check out oak savannah, see the madrone trees and Valley Pines and several nice views of the west side of Spencer's Butte.

Parking will _not_ be at the most used Bailey Hill trailhead nor the Bailey Hill View Drive trailhead, but at the summit, which can be difficult for some to find.

So at 3pm we will caravan from the NW corner of shopping center parking lot across from Churchill HS --
corners of Bailey Hill and Westleigh -- 2101 Bailey Hill Rd, Eugene, OR 97405

  • Event Leader: Frank Nikki

  • Assistant Leader:

  • Event category: Trips

  • Area Type: Urban

  • Departure Location: See Trip Description

  • Rating: Easy

  • Roundtrip total drive miles:

  • Season: 2022

  • Permits Required:

  • Event Status: Passed

  • Supplies and Equipment Required:

  • participant prerequisites:

  • Conditions:

  • Total Distance: 2.5

  • Member Fees: 1

  • Elevation Gain: 300

  • Non-Member Fees: 2

  • Committee: Trips

  • Junior member fees: —

Trip Report

This trailhead on Summit Sky Boulevard is more difficult to find than the usual Bailey Hill Rd & S Bertelsen Rd, or Bailey View Drive trailheads so the leader met the hikers at the Bailey Hill Shopping Center to caravan up.

We started out taking the main trail to the right, counter clockwise, past the Bailey View Trailhead, looping down and southeast, to the less developed east valley of the park. We took our time to enjoy the views of the west side of Spencer Butte and identify some of the trees and shrubs -- Madrone trees, a few Incense Cedars, and Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pines among an Oregon White Oak Savanna. It is early for the Wild Iris to be blooming but a few were out. At the lower SW portion of the park we explored where there may have been an old homesite -- there is a pond, an old pump and some daffodils (definitely non native).

This site contains significant amounts of prairie, savanna, and oak woodland (all habitat types that have declined significantly in the Willamette Valley over the past 150 years), and the site is particularly valuable from a habitat standpoint.

Since the arrival of Euro-American settlers the area had become a more closed-canopied forest habitat with a number of invasive exotic plant species such as Scot’s broom (Cytisus scoparius), Armenian blackberry (Rubus armeniacus), and Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense), along with a host of non-native grasses and forbs, which have colonized areas of the site. Over the past decade, the city has been sending crews out to restore the site’s historic open prairie and oak savanna habitats.

For more history here is the Wild Iris Ridge October 2008 MANAGEMENT PLAN dated 2008:
http://nebula.wsimg.com/8f15c6664741fb2386688afd8c063647?AccessKeyId=89C2CFCB915E75E9CBF1&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

Some of the hikers expressed appreciation that this was not an early morning hike. It was a very congenial group.

Note to access trailhead -- Parking is at the Summit Sky Blvd Trailhead Sign half a block west of Tiburon Lane, Eugene, OR 97405.

Members & Guests signed-up & waitlisted

  • Number of spots on trip: 8
  • Number of spots available: 0
No. Status Full name Phone Transportation Needed? Trip Fee # Can Take?
1 Signed-Up Frank, Nikki 541-954-3050 N 1
2 Signed-Up Pergamit, Jerry 541-968-6212 N 1
3 Signed-Up Larsen, Sandra 541-687-2589 N 1
4 Signed-Up Alexander, Joanna 458-209-7798 N 1
5 Signed-Up Orsi, Barbara 541-515-9665 N 1
6 Signed-Up Risque, Robin 541-228-2525 N 1
7 Signed-Up Emlen, Clara 541-746-2181 N 1
8 Signed-Up Allen, Jane 541-731-1338 N 2